As the Delhi assembly elections are approaching nearer, politics has heated up in the national capital. The BJP, the Congress party, and the Aam Aadmi Party have all left behind the development issue and are busy doing politics over the Citizenship Amendment Act. This time just a month ahead of elections, the Delhi voters are talking nothing other than CAA, and this is what basically the political parties want, irrespective of their ideologies.
The common voter is thus falling into the trap of our political leaders. Besides, our politicians know how to play with the mind of youths, especially those studying in premier educational institutions.
When it comes to student politics, JNU’s name comes on the top. The University is often called an ‘adda’ (hub) of politics. A few days back there was an outrage among the students over the fee hike issue. Whether the fee-hike issue was justified or not is another debate. However, the panic created by those, who were really not worried about the hike but wanted to fulfill their own vested interests, gathered a lot of media coverage. The issue was indeed, blown out of proportion.
Similarly, in 2016, Jawaharlal Nehru University was in news over the ‘Tukde-Tukde controversy.’ On February 9, 2016, the university turned into a battleground, after a group of students organised an event to mark the death anniversaries of Parliament attack accused, Afzal Guru and the co-founder of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), Maqbool Bhat. Surprisingly, the commemorative meeting went ahead even after the JNU administration revoked permission for the programme in the wake of complaints from Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).
After clashes erupted between the ABVP and the JNUSU, sedition charges were slapped on Anirban Bhattacharya, Umar Khalid and Kanhaiya Kumar, the organisers of the event. Khalid and Bhattacharya were among the five students who, along with JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar, had allegedly shouted anti-national slogans at the event.
The February 9, incident was a widely debated issue in that year, there were demands to shut down JNU. What aggravated the situation further were the visits of our political leaders like Rahul Gandhi, former Union ministers Anand Sharma and Ajay Maken, former Rajya Sabha member D. Raja and Swaraj Abhiyan chief Yogendra Yadav, to the JNU campus.
No doubt, these political leaders visited the campus for their selfish interests and none of them cared about the future of students studying in JNU. As political representatives, our duty is to guide the students to follow a right path, however, seeking political mileage by turning educational institutions into political battlefields is nothing but dirty politics.
This time, when protests around CAA have already created a tensed environment in the national capital, what happened in JNU, yesterday, is highly condemnable. On Sunday night, a mob of around 50 to 60 masked men and women, holding sticks and rods entered hostel buildings, and allegedly assaulted students and vandalized the campus.
As the blame game between the ABVP and the left-wing over the violence continues, the question remains as to if our educational institutions safe, do they ensure the safety of students to their parents who send their children so as to get quality education in these prestigious institutions? The recent incident raises a big question mark on the security arrangements. Why couldn’t the security guards identify these masked assailants when they entered the University campus?
That too, when it’s an established fact that JNU is a hub of political activities and situation in Delhi was already boiling following the ongoing anti-CAA protests. Political gimmick around the whole JNU episode cannot be ruled out. Whether those who attacked the students and teachers belonged to ABVP gang or the JNUSU gang is not important, what is crucial is that our leaders should not politicise the issue as they are doing now. A time bound probe should be ordered into this whole incident and those found guilty should be punished.
Educational institutions are basically meant to seek knowledge and they should not be turned into violence sites. Student politics is good, but only as long as, it is within its limits.
Besides, Neither the ABVP gang should dominate campus life in India in the name of nationalism, nor should those affiliated with the left-wing group try to make any attempt to portray a terrorist as a hero. By commemorating Afzal Guru in JNU, the students belonging to the left-wing group did an insult to the family member of those who laid down their lives in the 2001 Indian parliament attack.
It is least expected from those studying in one of India’s most prestigious institutions, to differentiate between a martyr and a terrorist. After all, a terrorist is a terrorist and a martyr is a martyr. In the same year, reacting to the JNU controversy, ace wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt had written a patriotic poem in Hindi. A translation of few lines, from the poem goes like this:
"They consider themselves as enemies of the country in which they are born.
What sort of freedom of speech is this that permits one to abuse Mother India.
What sort of freedom of expression allows one to violate the honor of my country?
If Afzal is martyr then who is Hanamanthappa?”
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